kiejinn

I've been meaning to post about this great watch from for around a week now. It's a freebie from Muse that can be found at Fashion Avenue. 

I hadn't picked it up on my first visit to Fashion Av, because I usually prefer silver over gold jewellery, and leather over the snake-skin look. But, but I spoke to Caliah Lyon (the extremely talented, yet modest, creator) in-world, and she asked if I had the freebies that she'd put out. So, I went down to take another look...

Click to enlarge

...and I really can't say enough good things about this watch:

The attention to detail is amazing - just look at the stitched texture on the *inside* of the watch band, the "muse" branding on the face, and the cut of the diamonds. The prim-work is nicely detailed too - I love the way the end of the watch band sits out naturally, the tiny diamonds and winding knob, and the delicate watch hands.

My favourite thing about this watch is that you can set the time! Better yet, you can see the hands moving around in real-time. Overall, this watch is an amazing freebie, and I'm grateful to Caliah for making it available. I should mention that she has some of the best jewellery I've seen in SL at Muse, and some beautiful pictures on the walls advertising it too. I highly recommend everyone pick up these watches at Fashion Avenue (there are two different face colours, and silver male watches too), and of course pay Muse a visit too.

We've just increased our internet download limit (again), so I think I should be able to spend more time in SL without having to watch myself so closely. This last week of not being in world at all (apart from some very brief trips to pick up freebie items) has been terrible. It's so nice to be able to relax a bit now.

Today I've spent some time sorting through my inventory (while camping, so I earned back all of what I've spent on "free" 1L clothes lately).

Later on I did some building, and finally took some pictures of my first "house" (to be uploaded later). I really enjoy building. There's something wonderful about being able to create beautiful, but also functional, structures which can then remain in-world. The urge to rent, or even to become a paying member so I could buy my own land, is definately getting stronger.

While I was at the sandbox, I saw a man building a house I really liked. I looked at his profile, and discovered that he was a land owner, and rented out a lot of "ocean front" properties. I've been wanting to explore some "residential areas", so I was excited to teleport over. The sim was really cool. It was nicely layed out, and looked like a fancy beach suburb, with some nice public areas, like a lounge, pool-side bar, and giant tree house among other things. I took quite a few pictures there, including some of another house I really liked. 



Public lounge in a glass domed building


Another floor of the same building. Check out the nice architecture in the background.


This house was my favourite. I love the colours, and the "lines". I usually prefer a rustic look over a modern look, but I really like this. It's simple, but it works for me :)



Seeing as it was empty, I took a look inside. 





I hope that the residents of the area have a nice community spirit. Actually, I have no idea how many people live there, but the group has 60 members. I'd love to have the money and talent to do what Marcel has done with this sim. I wonder if he makes enough profit to cover his expenses. Even breaking even would be nice, as it would be an amazing thing to accomplish.

This is in response to this post in the second_lifers community. At least, that's what it started out as, although I'm not sure how closely I stuck to the "topic". Anyway, it got too long to post there.

I'm going to leave the "dissociation" comments alone, because I'm really not sure I understand what you're getting at there. There are two things I'd like to talk about.

1) You asked why people choose to look the way they do, and why they take it so seriously. Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm happy to share my thoughts.

My default avatar is human. I have occasionally used non-human avatars briefly, but don't own one that I like enough to use it more often than that. I have one human "shape", which I created myself, and which has remained unchanged in the 3 months that I've been in SL, apart from getting a bit taller. My shape is based on my real shape, with minor modifications (eg, I've always wanted to have pointed ears, so in SL I do. Also, I'm taller in SL than in RL. That is only because the average height in SL is greater than in RL, and while I'm happy to be on the short side of average, I don't want people to think I have a dwarf or child avatar).

I have 3 main skins - one is my usual skin, and the other two I use if I feel like wearing "make-up". I bought my skins with 2 vouchers that were given to me within a few weeks of creating my SL account. For my usual skin I wanted something that looked natural and not like it had much, if any, make-up (as I rarely wear make-up in RL). The skin tone and lip colour is again essentially the same as my own. The other two skins I bought specifically for different "looks". I rarely use them, but I'm glad they're there for when I'm in the mood.

I have lots of different hair and many clothes, but those are less fundamental to my avatar than my shape and skin. My usual clothes are casual - pants and a T-shirt or jacket.

As to whether I take my appearance seriously - as an expression of my personality in SL, my appearance is important to me. Having said that, so far I've spent very little money in SL - almost certainly less than 50 cents of "real money". I'm happy with the way I look now, and I haven't gotten to the point of wanting to spend any more money to further customerise my appearance. If I hadn't been given the skin vouchers, I might have bought a skin by now.

Despite being more or less based on me, I'd be kidding myself if I said my avatar looked much like me. Also, there are some things I do in SL that I don't or can't do in RL (like flying, snowboarding, or even dancing). I'm more interested in shopping for clothes in SL than in real life, probably because there is so much I can get for free. I do enjoy changing my appearance and "dressing up", but as I said, I wear plain casual clothes most of the time.

For some people, their appearance in SL will facilitate the "role-playing" of a character that is different from their first life personality. I personally don't make any attempt to role play - I'm essentially "myself" in SL, but there are of course some differences between my RL and my SL "character" in terms of both appearance and actions. For other people, SL might allow them to portray a physical appearance and character that is more "themselves" in terms of gender, race, age, species, etc, than they feel in RL...

2) In response to the title of the post "Is it real, or is it not? Because you can't have it both ways."

Second Life is what it is. Of course it is "real" in that nothing unreal exists. It's a virtual environment rather than a physical environment, but it is not purely imaginary - the interactions and relationships that occur there involve real people and not computer generated characters. To ask if SL was real in that sense would be like asking if a chat room was "real". SL shares many similarities with a chat room, but has the added features of highly customiserable avatars, a (virtual) 3D physical environment, and of course a market, with a real economy.

Role-playing is another dimension of SL that I'm less familiar with. In that case, I guess you could say that it's role playing between real people in a virtual environment - and the interactions and relationships may not be "real" in the same sense. I know some people role-play in chat rooms too, but that has never interested me.

A big difference between SL and most virtual environments (like WoW for example, which I admit I haven't played) is that SL, while it has a huge scope for role-playing, does not have a "goal", a "background story", or a single "theme". SL is in no way a "game" (other than perhaps the "game of life") - and that means that apart from the opportunity to enter the world as anyone or anything, it also provides the opportunity to enter as yourself.

It's worth noting that there are many people in SL that do change their avatars dramatically from day to day, and who may role-play several different characters, in various "fantasy" environments, possibly in addition to being "themselves" and doing more mundane things. I think it's probably fair to say that those people do have it both ways.

Yet another angle is that for some people, SL is a way to socialise with people who they already know in RL, or to meet people with a view to having a RL relationship. Many other people (including myself) want to keep their real and second lives seperate, probably so they can maintain their "freedom" in SL.